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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27616757">what are you doing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 03:15:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,302</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27616757</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"You fought so hard to get this land back," he cuts in. Sympathy bleeds from the words, and is replaced by something like steel. "So hard." He's not even talking to Wilbur, now. He's talking to the new President and his insufferable Vice, whose suffering he is just now choosing to blame Wilbur for.</p><p>But Wilbur is ignoring him. He's examining the detonator with an antithetical compound of bloodthirsty passion and mellow disinterest that makes Phil very nervous.</p><p>"I don't even know if it works anymore, Phil," he murmurs glibly, like a toddler with a new secret, bursting with naive glee and delighted to spread the word. "I don't even know if the button works. I could press it," he adds, conspiratorial, effusive in his honesty. Or maybe it's a reaffirmation, a thirst to prove oneself finally slaked. Fuck if Phil knows.</p><p>"Do you really wanna take that risk?"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dave | Technoblade &amp; Wilbur Soot &amp; TommyInnit &amp; Phil Watson, Floris | Fundy &amp; Wilbur Soot, No Romantic Relationship(s), Toby Smith | Tubbo &amp; TommyInnit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>190</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anonymous</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>what are you doing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>More than anything, Philza is a cautious man.</p><p>It's something he's become well-known for over the years. Some people think its madness that pushes him further, higher, faster, to more dangerous places than anyone else. The wiser ones know that forethought and preparation are the only things that keep him alive through it all.</p><p>Well. Maybe he's a little mad. Nothing scares him anymore. Nothing challenges him, and what little dares to try marks the highlight of his day. Moving mountains, draining oceans, wrangling the very Withers to his own ends - these things do not offer him fear.</p><p>But as he looks at his son, his boy, talking feverishly to himself in a cave full of bombs, Phil is afraid.</p><p>It was a day like any other, in the moment. Clearing out large swathes of the Nether was arduous, grueling work. The elytra on his back were limp and ruffled in the heat. Taking them off and smoothing out each feather, he decided it was time to break. And then, for the first time in weeks, he got a call.</p><p>Not that Phil took it personally. Living alone didn't bother him - he would likely have noticed by now if it did - and the kids were busy at times. All told, he worried for them. For a long time now, he had been told three wildly conflicting accounts of the power struggle plaguing their home server. So whilst he wasn't scared, the name on Phil's communicator display was distracting enough that an irate piglin almost got a single hit on his forearm. Embarrassing.</p><p>See, Dream was a complex man. He was about as old as Techno and just as infamous, and they shared a semi-friendly rivalry that had recently culminated in the kind of duel people wrote poems about. But he was also in some senses a tyrant, and the most irresponsible server owner Phil had ever heard of. In no sense, all three of his children made sure to stress, could he be trusted.</p><p>"Phil!" hissed Dream as soon as he picked up. In the background there was cheering and laughter. It already did not bode well. According to Tommy's last messages, there was supposed to be a great battle that day. It wasn't hardcore; it wasn't his home. The stakes were different but equal across the great divide of diffculty. On survival servers, what mattered was not the temporary blip of death, but what was left behind.</p><p>He was so proud of his sons for building that something together, after years of petty squabbles and trite challenges and unending slaughter. As most everyone did, they would settle. Part of Phil suspected that it would not be on Dream's server.</p><p>"Alright?" he asked simply, customary neutrality tempered by distaste. This masked man, in his inscrutable way, had caused more pain to his family than he would like to imagine.</p><p>In the hushed interim before Dream spoke, he bat away a hoglin and vowed internally to discuss settling down with the boys when this silly conflict was over. As much as he wanted them to make their own decisions, as much as the many deaths they suffered and reported were impermanent, Phil was well aware of the lasting impact of coming back.</p><p>They were hardly a normal family in most respects, and in this it was no different. As one of the only recorded lone hardcore players in history, Phil wondered if he was setting a bad example. By Wilbur's age most people had settled into an easy server or struck out with their friends in a normal survival server. He and Techno both seemed determined to bounce between worlds for a while longer, islands in the sky and arenas full of death and the strange finite place where they had once all taken over the world in their own ways.</p><p>At least there was Tommy. The quaint peaceful server Phil had raised them in had only the family and Tubbo whitelisted. Implicitly, it had always been assumed that the two teenagers would inherit that house, tend to the modest farm there, if Phil's adventures ever came to an end. But that wasn't going to happen for a very long time.</p><p>"No!" Dream was clarifying hurriedly. 'I mean-yes, they won. I don't care that they won, not really, L'Manberg isn't a threat now they're all happy-" He was babbling. Dream did not babble. Phil slowly put away his pick and began to march homewards, listening to the harried explanation, and suddenly feeling very tired indeed.</p><p>"I need you to stop him. Everything was going to be okay, it was going to be fine, Tommy's finally safe - Wilbur's going to blow it all up for the sake of his pride. I'm not afraid to admit that I need you."</p><p>The decision was already made before Phil gathered up his best netherite armour and slung it into a bag. The decision was already made before he chugged a strength potion, wiping the foam from his top lip on instinct and feeling the excess droplets tingle on his fingertips. The decision was made years before, and it would be made again.</p><p>More than almost anything, Philza is a cautious man. But more than even that, he is a father. And his children need his help.</p><p>"What are you doing?" he asks, as if he doesn't know.</p><p>Wilbur is, put lightly, a fucking mess. His downy mop of hair, usually so well-kept, dangles into his eyes in lank and greasy strands. For years now he has loomed over Phil, but the defensive curl of his spine puts them almost at eye level. Dirt and blood crust his hands and coat, the telltale leavings of a very short war.</p><p>"I'm not-I wasn't doing anything," Wilbur lies, and that's when the paternal concern bouncing around Phil's ribcage crystallises into something harder and infinitely more horrible. "We just made Tubbo the President." It's a potent, fatigued kind of anger. "And we won! We won the war; Schlatt's gone." He is ashamed to realise that it is the most alive he has felt in decades.</p><p>It's the way Wilbur smiles. It's the way he perks up before leaning lazily against the stone, and fucking smiles with his arms loosely crossed. Like everything's alright. Like Phil should be proud. He'd known from Tommy that it was getting bad, but threats were one thing, and this? This is...this is intent, as pure and as calm as the canal in the distance. Wilbur's eyes are rheumy and bright and unequivocally brimming with that intent. It is brilliant, in the way that harsh lights and glittering blades and dragons collapsing in on themselves are brilliant.</p><p>He always was a brilliant boy.</p><p>"Uh-huh," he interrupts, and Wilbur twitches unpleasantly. "And you are...what, exactly, now?"</p><p>"Okay, I will admit-" Phil shifts, and he takes a step back. No more monologues. "Do you know what this button is?"</p><p>"I do." It's half a lie. He's never been here before. Never has he seen this morbid, awful bolthole in the flesh. The stench of sweat, the painstaking, jagged carvings, taste like bile on his tongue. Its very atmosphere intrudes. But by Prime, he knows what that button will do.</p><p>"Have you heard the song...on the walls....before? Have you heard the song?" And he sounds almost hopeful. "I was just saying, I made this big point - and it was poignant - and it was that there <em>was </em>a special place where men could go. But it's not there anymore, y'know? It's not."</p><p>"It <em>is</em> there." It is. He's seen it. It's pockmarked and makeshift, but it is beautiful. "You've just won it back, Will." But does he want it?</p><p>Inching carefully towards him under the guise of a terrified spasm, Phil breathes out. Until Wilbur yells, really yells, and he feels himself rear back like a wild horse. He doesn't want to be scared of this.</p><p><em>"Phil!"</em> he screams, literally screams himself hoarse, and Phil's hands itch for the old potions of healing strained into hot chocolate that will stop it from killing his throat tomorrow. "I'm always <em>so close t</em>o pressing this button, Phil! I have been here, like," he considers, clutching at his own shoulders with feral veracity, "seven or eight times I have been here."</p><p>That stirs the embers of hope from their hearth. Because if he's talked himself down on that many occasions, then a part of Wilbur must still know that this is wrong.</p><p>Something similar seems to occur to him. He stares slackly at Phil, pupils blown wide and furious, alight with the warm gleam of glowstone and the cool blaze of vengeance. "Seven...or eight, times..."</p><p>He doesn't know what to say. Phil was never the speaker; that was always Techno. He gives, and makes, and does, and in this way he loves. That's the man he tries to be. That's the father he strives to be. "Phil, I've been here so many times," Wilbur breathes one more time, muffled by his hands. For a moment he mumbles about the others finding the cave, carding a shaky hand through his hair, and it's so like his younger self that Phil can only laugh in horrified amazement as he watches him drag furniture against the rocky entrance. His own arms sway useless and swordless at his sides.</p><p>An awful, punched-out rumbling starts up overhead and stops just as abruptly.</p><p>"They're fighting," the fallen leader frets, in two minds, "they're fighting!"</p><p>This is his chance.</p><p>"And you want to just blow it all up?" Wilbur exhales slowly in his direction and pinches the bridge of his nose. It's not a sigh of indecision, but of condescension.</p><p>"I do, I do, I think I...I-"</p><p>"You fought so hard to get this land back," he cuts in. Sympathy bleeds from the words, and is replaced by something like steel. "So hard." He's not even talking to Wilbur, now. He's talking to the new President and his insufferable Vice, whose suffering he is just now choosing to blame Wilbur for.</p><p>But Wilbur is ignoring him. He's examining the detonator with an antithetical compound of bloodthirsty passion and mellow disinterest that makes Phil very nervous.</p><p>"I don't even know if it works anymore, Phil," he murmurs glibly, like a toddler with a new secret, bursting with naive glee and delighted to spread the word. "I don't even know if the button works. I could press it," he adds, conspiratorial, effusive in his honesty. Or maybe it's a reaffirmation, a thirst to prove oneself finally slaked. Fuck if Phil knows.</p><p>"Do you really wanna take that risk?" he says in the same abstruse manner, and in doing so he finally has Wilbur's attention. It's patchy and fragile and distracted by the near-constant crackling of fireworks, but he'll take it. "There is a lot of TNT," his jaw catches on how much 'a lot' could be, "potentially connected to that button."</p><p>He doesn't know what to do. There's chaotic and cruel - traits he thought he had softened in Wilbur, blunted with the buffer of unconditional love - and then there's a willingness to murder children, again and again and again. To traumatise his little brother for the sake of a survival server, where dying just makes the pain in your head worse in other ways. It was why Phil has always preferred hardcore - if he ever does make a mistake, it won't be him that has to deal with it.</p><p>Because at the end of the day, he's a coward. And Wilbur is not.</p><p>The two of them are barely blocks apart now, Wilbur rolling words around his tongue with happy indulgence. He's <em>glad,</em> Phil knows wanly, that he is here. This is not his boy, is it? This is a father and a general and a president and a damned traitor to it all.</p><p><em>You will not make an orphan of my grandson</em>, he thinks to himself in wry reference to a very old play. He wants to meet Fundy, at least once, before Wilbur does something irreversible.</p><p>"You see, Phil," Wilbur breathes, "there was a saying. It was by a traitor. Once part of L'Manberg; a traitor. I don't know if you've heard of Eret."</p><p>Phil had in fact met Eret already. They had an alluring voice and an amicable if taut smile, and they had taken him readily to the national podium upon request. Tommy had called him a traitor too in pages and pages of messily-typed messages. But she hadn't seemed like one, saluting Tubbo proudly and hugging Niki to his chest with what looked like real pride.</p><p>"Thank you, your majesty," he had said hurriedly, pick thumping into the hillside as Dream kept up appearances in L'Manberg. It never hurt to be polite. Eret had looked back at him thoughtfully, his mouth a displeased twist, and smiled once more.</p><p>"Not anymore, sir. But thank you."</p><p>He hadn't had the time to ask what for.</p><p>"Yeah," he mutters thickly, fists balled. He has never once hit Wilbur. Phil hardly wants to start now. They stare at each other for a while after that that feels a good deal longer than it should be, listening to the fireworks above decline in frequency until the ground is still once more.</p><p>"He had a saying, Phil." Wilbur licks his chapped lips, face contorting as if it isn't quite sure what to do with itself. Hungry, apprehensive, his fingers flex around his collar and as he draws himself up to his full height they flutter upwards and outwards from his coat. "They said-"</p><p>And for the second time in as many hours Phil doesn't get to hear what Eret said, because he surges across the room and bowls Wilbur over before he can say another fucking word.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>what a story. glad to have been here.</p><p>please do leave kudos and a comment if you enjoyed, i'll actually reply for once xxx</p></blockquote></div></div>
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